In an age of rapidly developing technology and ever more complex digital
initiatives, many traditional preservation and access projects go overlooked
-- and under-funded. This problem is amplified multifold in regions where
conservation awareness and capabilities are stretched to their limits.
Several millennia worth of extremely important research material lay crumbling
in dusty heaps or moldering in humid conditions in countless neglected
or imperiled archives and institutions around the world. In seeking to
help address these challenges in Africa, the Cooperative Africana Microform
Project (CAMP) and Title VI National Resource Centers for African Studies
have engaged in a self-funded effort to preserve significant research
material and build capacity in African archives.

The African archives cooperative projects have their roots in 1993. Dr.
Dennis Galvan (University of Oregon), then a graduate student at the University
of California-Berkeley, submitted a proposal to CAMP to film Senegalese
regional court records. Between 1993 and 1995, research and reconnaissance
trips to West Africa by Africana Librarians and historians culminated
in a decision by Title VI Africana librarians (in consultation with Center
directors) to proceed on a pilot project in cooperation with the National
Archives of Senegal.

The National Archives of Senegal (Archives Nationales du Sénégal)
is one of the premiere archival institutions in the region. Its collection
contains many important resources for colonial Senegal (1816-1958), Afrique
Occidentale Française (1895-1959), and independent Senegal (since
1958). By November 1995, the “pilot” material was identified
as the already well organized, film-ready "Justice Indigène,
1838-1954: sous-série 6M." This collection consists
primarily of statistics of judgments, reviews of court decisions, and
administrative reports on divisional courts ("tribunaux des cercles")
and sub-divisional courts regularly sent from interior posts to the colonial
administration in Dakar as part of a process of legal oversight and review.
This collection contains a significant portion of material relating to
regions outside the "Four Communes," which are better represented
in collections and the body of historical research.

With funding from CAMP and the Title VI Centers and under the voluntary
direction of Dr. Joseph Caruso (Columbia University), the National Archives
of Senegal was able to obtain film supplies from France and purchase needed
equipment. Over the next four years, the Archives staff diligently worked
to preserve the 160,000 pages of material (323 boxes) in the series. The
collection, now held in its entirety by CAMP, was preserved on 206 reels
of film.

The project was not accomplished without challenge. The National Archives
had difficulty acquiring film stock, and equipment malfunctions slowed
reproduction of the materials. Manuals accompanying new equipment were
in English, and not readily readable by the technicians. The Archives
purchased equipment necessary for film duplication in 1998, but unfortunately
had difficulties in achieving satisfactory results for film duplication.
For this and other reasons, in 1999 the project funded a four-day training
workshop on preservation for the personnel of the preservation/reproduction
unit of the National Archives of Senegal. Dr. Caruso and Robert Mottice
(UMI/Bell and Howell) traveled to Africa to assess the Senegalese personnel
abilities to microfilm and to run through the process of producing and
making copies of film. The session was a practical training session in
microform techniques, based not on theoretical or ideal conditions, but
rather utilizing the limited resources available on-hand.

As follow-on to the successful cooperation in filming ”Justice
Indigène,” CAMP and the Title VI libraries (with Northwestern
University) have embarked on a second phase of cooperation with the National
Archives to film "Affaires politiques et administratives de Sénégal,
serie D." "Serie D" is a major collection on the history
of Senegal and early French colonial rule in West Africa. The material
provides valuable insight into political and administrative life (treaties
and conventions, reports on native administration and justice, military
recruitment, finances electoral operations, demography), economic life
(agriculture, breeding and fishing, public works, mines, transportation
infrastructure), and social life (ceremonies, health, and education).

Title VI cooperation and common language:

While the pilot project and follow-on described above was an innovation
for Title VI participants, cooperation in collection building and research
services has been the norm among Africana libraries for many years. This
historical foundation of cooperation has provided the framework for much
of the project's development. Along with this experience with cooperation,
Africana librarians within the Title VI group have the advantage of a
well-developed communications network and an established, collegial 'corporate
culture' of frank and fruitful dialogue.

For the past three cycles of Title VI funding (nine years), the African
NRC's have inserted common language into their proposals for continued
funding of cooperative library projects. While the language was originally
inserted to support the collaboration with the National Archives of Senegal,
the second 3-year cycle expanded the elements of cooperation to include
the collection of African dissertations. Since then, the Title VI librarians
have included other points of cooperation for which funds may be committed.
Though the funding approved each year is relatively small per institution,
it provides an opportunity to funnel Title VI funding into projects that
Africana Librarians Council (ALC) has been cooperating on for a number
of years. For a full description of cooperative activities, see the report
titled "Opportunities
and Challenges in Africana Library Service."

Future Activity

Title VI librarians remain committed to the cooperative arrangements
with the National Archives of Senegal. However, it is recognized that
CAMP and the Title VI libraries need to consider a broader cooperative
effort to support African capacity-building and broad collaboration with
African institutions in these tasks. To this aim, CAMP has commissioned
an "Archives Task Force" from among its members to examine the
lessons learned from the initial cooperative effort and develop strategic
directions for continued cooperation with African archives. The task force
is compiling a list of current partnerships between U.S. (and foreign)
institutions and African archives. Surveying the "landscape"
of cooperative efforts will allow the group to better develop prospects
for future collaboration.

At the core of the issue is the need for increased communication and
collaboration -- among institutions and interested individuals in the
U.S.; with African archives, universities, and associations; and with
trans-national and international organizations such as IFLA's Section
of Regional Activities for Africa and the joint IFLA/ICA Committee for
Preservation in Africa (JICPA). CAMP needs to establish more substantive,
enduring, and consistent relationships with these constituent groups in
order to develop a rationalized and long-term response to the needs of
the region.

From the experiences gained through current initiatives, the following
principles of cooperation may be generalized.

Assessing needs: A comprehensive review of needs
of African institutions must accompany any prospective cooperation.
While institutions in some countries have reasonably well-developed
preservation capabilities, lack of funding or institutional support
continues to hamper efforts to develop viable conservation programs
or policies. Other countries or institutions have no preservation capacity
whatsoever. CAMP must work with JICPA and other efforts such as "Africa
Research Central" to develop information on needs of African institutions
in the area of preservation and identify potential projects. U.S. institutions
must also enable their specialists to engage in such tasks by sponsoring
research and acquisition trips, upon which up-to-date, detailed reconnaissance
reports on conditions in regions and local sites can be made. This was
critical for the first phase of this project and must continue.

Preservation education: On-site training is the most
effective way to insure successful results, but training in any permutation
should be an integral part of any future project. Whereas, the costs
of on-going staff development should be primarily supported by the African
institution to insure the sustainability of its own preservation program,
U.S. partners must be willing to offer financial support as needed.
The commitment of funds to improve preservation efforts and support
for training are critical elements in considering the successful outcomes
of this project.

Promoting Cooperation: As reflected above, there
are many institutions without capacity to preserve the important collections
they possess. While some imperiled institutions have been fortunate
to receive broad international recognition, such as the Mamma Haidara
Library and others in Timbuktu, countless others are losing the battle
to preserve their precious heritage. CAMP must attempt to help build
better relationships among institutions in order to share preservation
information and resources. Institutions with microfilming equipment
but little staff availability should give consideration to microfilming
"time-shares" with those institutions lacking capacity, so
that collaborators can share costs and ensure equipment is being used
to full capacity to preserve more material.

Diversification of funding: The current projects
in Senegal have been funded through the generous contributions of Title
VI Centers and CAMP, but these funds are admittedly insufficient for
projects of larger scale. CAMP must begin to identify funding opportunities
to aid in the expansion of this project to other collections and regions.
The benefits to funders and U.S. institutions are obvious, taking concrete
form in the receipt of copies of research material previously unavailable
or unexplored, thus contributing to a better understanding of this historically
crucial region of the world.